I got stung by two yellow jackets this week. It turns out I have large localized reactions which don't require epinephrine but cause hives, swelling, and general pain. The first was merely annoying when I was stung on my finger. The second could have been life-threatening after I nearly swallowed the insect that crawled into my can of cactus juice. Trust me, it was a nightmare.

My lip and cheeks swelled up to a noticeable size. I was comparing myself to a bulldog and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. I even let my coworkers take picture of my mean mug to promote sympathy on Facebook. But that was after going to work truly worried about what customers and coworkers would say about my face. I felt disfigured. It took a lot of self-love to get through the day. But by the end of the work day, I barely noticed the swelling.

I've had previous injuries and scars that shook my sense of self-worth. This includes a long pale scar on my inner knee where surgeons removed a benign bone tumor that was causing me pain. Along with other falls, scrapes, and illnesses throughout the years, my body and my brain have both gone through a lot of strain. And often enough, how I felt physically adversely affected my mental health.

According to a study done by Juth, Smyth, and Santuzzi on the US National Library of Medicine, chronic disease, and self-esteem have a causal relationship. Through survey methods, they found that lower levels of self-esteem caused worse symptoms in chronic illness. While I haven't gone through chronic illnesses, it definitely sucked more feeling sick or injured and feeling crappy about myself.

There are plenty of injuries that disfigure people and harm a person's self-worth. Car accidents, war injuries, attacks, and self-harm, while diverse in cause, drag people down because they show physical signs of trauma.